opponents Various arguments have been made against Big Tech’s antitrust push in an attempt to undercut support for the new legislation. They may have finally found someone to stick with.
This week, four Democratic senators, led by Brian Schatz of Hawaii, sent a letter to Amy Klobuchar asking her to contribute to the American Innovation and Choice Online Act. American Innovation and Choice Online Act) Come on. The bill, co-sponsored by Klobuchar with bipartisan support, would prohibit the biggest tech companies from abusing their power to disadvantage businesses operating on their platforms. But Schatz’s team argues that there are horrific side effects hidden in the legislation. They claim the bill will prevent dominant platforms from enforcing their content policies, which in turn “will increase harmful content online and make it harder to combat”.
Here’s what the act says about content moderation: No. The relevant section says that “Covered Platforms” — such as Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta or Microsoft — cannot “discriminate in some way among business users in similar circumstances when applying or enforcing the Covered Platform’s Terms of Service” This will cause significant damage to competition. This does not appear to prohibit or restrict content policies. Rather, it suggests that platforms can continue to enforce their terms of service —just not in a discriminatory wayOn the surface, this means that the dominant platform cannot unfairly apply its rules to companies that rely on it to reach customers. For example, if a new video-sharing app is eating into YouTube’s market share, the clause would prevent Google from selectively invoking some rarely-used policies to ban it from its app store.
If the bill doesn’t discuss content moderation, where did some people get it from and still influence the idea of it? In a way, this is a topic that has never been shy about making creative arguments to beat an industry that has proposed regulation. But tech insiders aren’t the only ones making that claim.Last week, law professors Jane Bambauer and Anupam Chander Washington post gives almost the same warning. On Wednesday, Chandler, who teaches at Georgetown, introduced me to the debate. Take Parler, a conservative “free speech” Twitter alternative. Last year, after the Jan. 6 unrest, Apple and Google banned Parler from their app stores, and Amazon AWS canceled its hosting contract. Parler filed a lawsuit without legal basis. (It eventually implemented a content policy and was allowed to re-enter the app store.) Under the new bill, however, conservative state attorneys general, such as Ken Paxton of Texas, will be able to sue the platforms, claiming They discriminate against Parler because of its conservative affiliation.
OK, but companies can’t simply say, “But this no Discrimination: This is a policy they violated, this is proof they violated a policy”? Chandler argues, not so fast. It doesn’t matter what Google or Amazon say. What matters is the federal judge and ultimately the Supreme Court decision. Many A Republican-appointed federal judge may agree that tech companies are abusing conservatives.
“Content moderation decisions are not clear up and down decisions,” Chandler said. “It’s easy to call these judgments discriminatory, especially when your judge thinks their side is the one being discriminated against.” He added, “Boy, you’re giving the conservative judges of these courts a loaded weapon. , knowing that they will have the support of all conservative Supreme Court justices.”
